Hackaday Newsletter 0x8E

All Good Things Must Come to an End [Hackaday] Bitcoin’s Double Spending Flaw Kept Hush-Hush [Read article now »]( All Good Things Must Come to an End By [Elliot Williams]( This is it, folks: the last weekend of the [2018 Hackaday Prize](. If you've got a crazy musical instrument project that you've been holding out on, put this newsletter down -- you've got work you should be doing. The rest of you, well sit back and relax: we've got a stellar team of judges who are going to start working their way through the list of finalists on Monday. What's bittersweet about running a giant prize competition like the Hackaday Prize is that a lot of the smaller, but equally awesome projects slip through the cracks. Don't take my word for it, though. [Go check out all ~1,000 entries]( If that doesn't inspire you to take on (and document!) whatever project you've got sitting on the corner of your desk right now, well, we've got two more contests. my personal favorite contest, [The Return of the Square Inch Contest]( just ended on Monday and judging is underway. I love the Square Inch constraint because it either pushes entries to incredible feats of miniaturization, or pushes the other way, toward a simplification of the design until it fits. So you get entries like a square-inch [radio telescope]( [oscilloscope]( or [CP/M 50 computer emulation]( but you also get a lot of projects that will be useful when incorporated into larger systems, like a [spectrometer breakout]( a [CANbus motor controller]( or a [SPI-controlled voltage regulator](. Alone, these tiny modules won't take over the world, but there's probably more re-usability per square inch here than anywhere else in open-source hardware! But wait, that's not all! The [Visualize it With Raspberry Pi contest]( also just wrapped up. Check it out if your tastes run toward the fancy blinking diodes. Kudos to everyone who entered -- all 1,300 of you! Getting something done, and getting it posted up where your fellow hackers can see, is always an achievement. Win or lose, you never know who you're going to inspire with your work. The Hackaday community says "thank you"! Hack Chat: Life on Mars [Matteo Borri]'s day job is building a chlorophyll spectroscope to fly on the next Mars rover. But he's also built a Battle Bot, worked in aerospace, and his [Vampire Charger]( even scored him a win in this year's Hackaday Prize. Interesting enough for you? Well, swing on by [this week's Hack Chat]( and pick his brain. From The Blog [Remember When Blockbuster Video Tried Burning Game Cartridges On Demand?]( By [Drew Littrell]( Blockbuster Video had a plan to burn data into generic Sega cartridges on demand. [Drew] investigates the history of good tech, but bad business plans. [Read more »]( [Retrotechtacular: Disposing of Sodium, 1947-Style]( By [Dan Maloney]( What explodes when you put it in water? Sodium metal. So how do you dispose of tons of the stuff? Throw it in an alkaline lake. Hey, it's the 1940's. [Read more »]( [The Modular Connector and How It Got That Way]( By [Dan Maloney]( You curse them when the little plastic tabs break off, but have you ever thought about the design behind the humble "phone" plug? [Dan] went digging. [Read more »]( If You Missed It [Malicious Component Found on Server Motherboards Supplied to Numerous Companies]( [Tiny WiFi-Enabled ARM MCU for Tiny Projects]( [New Part Day: The Fifty Cent USB Chip]( [Microsoft Releases Crown Jewels — From 1982!]( [High Detail 3D Printing With An Airbrush Nozzle]( [Hackaday]( NEVER MISS A HACK [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( SupplyFrame, Inc · 61 South Fair Oaks Avenue · Suite 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105 · USA